


Game Night

by Severina



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 06:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4090261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He just didn't understand what the fuss was all about, that's all. So he'd thought, on that random four-in-the-morning two weeks ago, that maybe he should find out for himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Game Night

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's smallfandomfest for the prompt "'John starts an online persona in Matt's favourite RPG to try and get to know him on his level. Bonus points if he has to accept help from the Warlock to do it.'
> 
> * * *

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Of course, "at the time" had been four in the morning, after another night spent tossing and turning as he listened to Matt's fingers peck at the keyboard in the room across the hall. Occasionally he heard Matt's voice murmuring through his headset, phrases like "lock it down" and "pull back" and "incoming" that John's fertile mind twisted into other, perhaps slightly more pornographic meanings. Granted, there were times when John got frustrated enough that he prowled across the hall and grabbed Matt by the nape of the neck; growled into his ear that he would show him what 'incoming' really meant before hauling him into bed where he belonged, leaving his headset in a tangle behind them and tinny voices yelping through the speakers. But mostly he left the kid alone when he got on this 'gaming' tangent.

He just didn't understand what the fuss was all about, that's all. 

So he'd thought, on that random four-in-the-morning two weeks ago, that maybe he should find out for himself. 

Which is how he ended up sequestered with the laptop in his bedroom, his gaze flicking between the webcam shot of Freddie Kaludis inset on his monitor and the tiny animated figure that Kaludis was somehow constructing on his screen even though he's still halfway across the country. He kept his mouth shut when Freddie piled on the muscles, and pressed his lips together when Kaludis added a tiny heart tattoo on a bulging bicep, but can't keep quiet when the character name pops up on the screen. 

"Big Blue?" John said skeptically, one brow lifting as he shifted his attention to the camera.

Freddie grimaced, glancing up at him in irritation. "What, you were thinking 'McClane2008'?"

He'd been thinking of his badge number, actually, but kept that information wisely to himself. Matt would recognize the number, of course, and the kid's genius brain would probably figure out any other pseudonym he could potentially think up. 'Big Blue' it is.

"All right," Kaludis said, "I've got you set up as a new player. Now we're going to run through a few practice scenarios so you look like you at least semi-know what the fuck you're doing."

John narrowed his eyes as he studied the screen and half-listened to Freddie's instructions about what buttons to press on the keyboard. His green-fatigued character – avatar, he remembered Matt calling it once – stood stock still in the middle of what he presumed was supposed to be a war-torn city. A half dozen similarly clad characters milled about near an overturned tanker, while blue-skinned aliens prowled atop the buildings in the distance. He cracked his knuckles as he took in the placement of the alien weapons, unable to stop a self-assured smile from creeping onto his face. The situation might look impregnable to people like Matt and Freddie, goddamn civilians. But to a trained cop with his number of years on the force? He could see how to smash that defense in three moves. Easy fuckin' peasy. 

"Okay," Freddie said. "Starting... now."

John quickly pushed a button and watched his avatar lurch to the right. Then – a flash that lit up the screen.

When he blinked and looked again, Big Blue was nothing more than a smear of red on the cracked blacktop.

"All right," Kaludis sighed through the headset. "Setting up again."

* * *

Matt clapped his hands together before adjusting his headset and poising his fingers over the keyboard. "All right, troops," he said as each member logged in, their avatars posing and stretching as they checked their controls. "Ready to do this?"

A chorus of Aye's and Fuck Yeah's reached him, but Matt frowned as he studied the screen. He reached up to switch his headset to a private channel. "Big Blue?" he said.

"New guy," the Warlock answered quickly. "Found me on one of the forums. The usual bullshit, you know, 'oh Warlock you're a god, oh Warlock I worship you, oh Warlock let me join your guild.' He wore me down, dude. But he's fine, it's all good, he'll be fine."

Matt raised a brow as he watched the noob turn jerkily in circles on the screen, weapon slack in his hand. "If you say so," he said doubtfully before switching back to the main comm channel. "All right, folks, we're about to mount an assault on the primary fortress of the T'kree Clan. Magda, Crusher, take up positions on the right. Warlock, you're on the main battery. Sherlock and Red Ranger, take up support positions behind the main assault team."

He waited for the affirmations from his team, then winced when his headset crackled loudly. "What about me?" the voice of the newbie boomed.

Matt shook his head. "You're new, Blue. Stick to the rear of the attack and wait for instructions," he answered, vaguely aware that the new guy was swearing under his breath as he switched back to the private comm. "Is he using a voice simulator?" he asked Warlock.

"He probably thought he should get all the extra gadgets, you know how fuckin' moronic the noobs are. Hell, you had a sim _and_ the effects app. You sounded like goddamn Kermit the Frog!"

"I did not!" Matt protested.

"Kermit the Frog on _steroids_ ," Warlock insisted. Matt opened his mouth to protest further, but Warlock's voice continued before he could speak. "You got dissent in the ranks."

Matt scowled and switched back in time to cut off the Ranger's bitching, then started the assault, his gaze flicking quickly between the responses of the T'kree and the movements of his troops. He winced when a finely placed rocket spewed dust and debris over the area, but still caught movement behind a pile of broken machinery. "Watch your ten, Crusher," he warned. 

"I see 'em, Green Two," the woman's voice answered.

"Sherlock, take the stairs. Magda, you've got his back."

"No no no!" the noob's voice muttered angrily, cutting off Sherlock's reply. "You never go in like… Jesus Christ! You need to take out that cannon on the east—"

"I'll take that under advisement, Big Blue," Matt interrupted tersely. "Sherlock, continue. Warlock, I'm going in through the side entrance, making for tower. Cover me."

"Jesus, Warlock, where'd you get this guy?" he muttered under his breath, then ignored the chatter of voices as he flicked his fingers over the keyboard, easing Green Two out from behind the concealing cover of a toppled pick-up. He made a dash for a smashed barricade on the west side, and then the world exploded. Two slime-covered alien warriors rose from behind a crashed car, their weapons shattering the flimsy barricade and the force from the blast slamming Green Two into the hard turf. Matt's fingers danced on the controls as he fumbled for his water pack, watched his life force draining by half before he could finally raise the flask to his lips. The voices of his troops reverberated through the headset as he dragged Two's body behind the dubious cover of a pair of gnarled and stunted trees.

"Oh, _fuck_ ," Big Blue's voice rose above the rest. "You all right, kid? Jesus, say somethin'!"

"Calm down, Big Blue," Warlock's voice interjected calmly.

"He's fucking trapped there!" Blue shouted. "Jesus Christ!"

Matt paused, his head cocked. His equipment was good, top of the line in fact, but he usually couldn't hear the responses of his team in _stereo_. 

"We gotta take down the main battery," he vaguely heard the Warlock say, smoothly taking control while Green Two was temporarily incapacitated. "Two, we'll come back for you once we've blasted these bastards back to the two-mooned hellhole they came from."

"Roger that," Matt murmured into the headset, most of his attention still focused on the house. The house that should be quiet, silent as the grave. The house where—

"Fuck that!" Blue screamed, overriding the calm replies of the others. 

Matt whipped the headset off, eyes wide when he could still hear Big Blue clearly. And this time there was no odd voice sim distortion.

"I'm going in!" Blue was yelling. "Hang on, kid!"

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Matt mumbled before abandoning the game and striding quickly to the door. He didn't bother to be quiet as he crossed the hall, nor when he opened the bedroom door. And he certainly couldn't stop the grin from stretching across his face when he saw John, who had sworn earlier that he was exhausted anyway and didn't care if Matt stayed up to play "his little geek games with his friends". 

John, who was now leaning toward his monitor as though he could leap into the screen, his eyes frantic and his fingers stumbling over the keys as he forced Big Blue to stagger into the line of fire. 

"I'm comin' for ya, kid," John muttered as he slammed a thumb frantically at the keyboard.

"I didn't know you cared that much, McClane," Matt said.

John stilled instantly, and Matt suddenly had a vague and somewhat disquieting memory of that same stillness settling over John the moment before he did something really stupid like shooting himself in the shoulder, and he kind of wondered if he should duck or maybe run for the bathroom. Then John's shoulders relaxed and he glanced sheepishly over his shoulder. "Oh," he said. "Hey, kid."

Matt leaned against the doorframe, crossed his arms at his chest. "Hey yourself."

"I was just, uh—"

"Losing your fucking shit because my digital avatar was trapped behind some trees?" Matt finished.

"I wasn't losing my—" John started before his shoulders slumped. "Fine, losing my shit," he conceded, before he lifted a hand and pumped a finger in Matt's direction. "But you never, _never_ expose yourself in a situation like that! You take advantage of your superior numbers _and_ you always take out the main artillery before you even begin a strategic advance! If you'd just listened to me—"

"Little caught up in the action?"

John eyed him for a moment before closing his eyes. "Jesus," he muttered.

Matt knew he could draw this out for another five minutes, but John looked so damn confused that he didn't have the heart. He pushed off from the door instead, flopped down on the bed next to John. "You know," he said, "if you wanted to join the game you could have just _asked_ me."

"I didn't want to join the fuckin' game," John groused. 

Matt snorted, waved an arm. "And yet."

"I just wanted to see what the big fascination was," John confessed. "Keepin' you up half the goddamn night."

"And?" Matt prompted.

"I can maybe see why you get all immersed in this shit," John said begrudgingly. 

"Well," Matt said, "since you were willing to admit that RPG's aren't the work of the devil, I _suppose_ I can also tell you that half the time? Green Two ends up trapped in a room or being tortured by the T'Kree or blown to smithereens because I'm too busy thinking about what I could be doing, in this room, with you, if I wasn't too busy saving the universe from slimy blue aliens."

John raised a brow. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

The bed shifted when John leaned back on his elbows. "Maybe I could hop online and help out sometime. Keep ya from gettin' yourself killed."

"You do make a habit of that," Matt teased. 

"Tonight?"

Matt stole a glance at the screen, felt his eyes go wide. Bedlam was the only word to describe it. "Holy shit," he murmured as he watched Ranger go down. "I didn't even know the T'Kree came armed with scythes!"

"You wanna go back in there, save their asses?"

Matt hesitated. It _was_ his team, and he did kind of owe it to them to pull their cans out of the fire, especially since there was that time last month when Magda darted through the barb wire to pull him out of that sticky situation in the jungle prison. But one glance at John, lying loose and languid on the bed, quickly deprived him of any altruistic tendencies. He reached out to flick the laptop closed decisively. "Fuck it," he said. "You know, Green Two does get into a lot of shit in that game. Maybe we should try a little real-world practice first, just in case ol' Two gets knocked out anytime soon," he continued. "A little mouth to mouth?"

John huffed out a laugh. "Jesus, kid."

"I'm gonna take that as a Yes," Matt said.

* * *

An hour later, John grinned smugly as Matt panted beside him.

"I don't think the game is calibrated for _that_ ," Matt breathed out.

John rolled over, planted his hands behind his head and smiled at the ceiling. He planned on giving the kid five minutes before he started in on round two.


End file.
